


Maybe We Are Not Alone

by myadamantiumheart



Series: Much Needed Therapy [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-11
Updated: 2012-08-11
Packaged: 2017-11-11 21:44:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/483217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myadamantiumheart/pseuds/myadamantiumheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe they're just getting to know each other, and maybe they're not best friends yet, but that doesn't mean you leave another Outsider to the wolves when you see them getting caught up in something sticky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe We Are Not Alone

“Did dear ol’ Daddio give you the spiel yet?” Jason grumbled, shoving into the car behind Damian and pushing his books onto the floor, buckling his seatbelt reluctantly when Alfred tsked at him. “About ‘behaving for Counselor Grayson’?” He made a face, sticking out his tongue and gagging. Damian glared at him, plucking one ear bud out and scooting as far away as he could from Jason on the bench seat.

“Father spoke to me about being polite to him, yes,” Damian scoffed. “He said nothing, however, about being polite to the quiet ones or that bovine idiot with the fetish for purple.” Jason smacked his shoulder, face morphing into a grin.

“Hey, she ain’t bovine. She’s damn fine, D, and you know it. Did you _see_ those tits?” Jason ignored Alfred’s scandalized cough, leaning in close and poking at Damian’s side. “So, think I got a chance with ‘er?”

“I do not think you have a chance with anyone,” Damian retorted, jerking his arm away from Jason and looking out the window with all the existential angst of a proper teenager. “You will die alone, _Jason_ , because no one is desperate enough to lower themselves to a ‘roll in the hay’ with _you_.”

“Not even someone you’ve apparently got such a low opinion of you’ll call them bovine?”

“She is at least smart enough to be in honors classes with me,” Damian sniffed. “So she is an acceptable specimen of a human being.”

“You are such a brat,” Jason shook his head, almost in awe of Damian’s all consuming ego. “You’re not gonna make it through this group bullshit if you act like that, you know? Sometimes you gotta fake it to make it, little D.”

“I do not have to fake anything,” He said stiffly, shoving his ear bud back in and going back to ignoring Jason. Truth be told... Jason didn’t particularly mind the kid’s silence.

Ever since he’d shown up, he’d been a bitter, prickly little nuisance, always criticizing Jason’s shortcomings and always acting as though the world was out to get him. Hell, Jason didn’t know what the fuck was up with his crazy mom. Maybe the world _was_ out to get him. He didn’t particularly care if it was, anyway. The brat never shut up, and even though he was a little bitch most of the time, he was always trying to impress Bruce. Jason would have been more impressed by his grades and his feats of athletic ability if he’d had a winning personality to go with it all.

As it was, making a teacher cry was funny, but it wasn’t gonna earn the kid any points. Especially not when Damian often turned his ire towards his adoptive older brother, or towards the shy kids in his classes who were afraid to speak up. That, in Jason’s opinion, was pretty much a dick move. Who called shy kids out on their quiet voices when they had to give presentations?

Bullies, that’s who. And Jason Peter Todd Wayne didn’t tolerate bullies, whether they were his brother or not. Maybe the kid would learn something, being in group with two of the shyest kids in Gotham central, a girl that everyone thought was going to drop out mid-semester to have her kid, and him.

Maybe the little prince would pull the self-righteous, egotistical stick out his perfect little ass and actually make some _friends_.  
  
\--  
  
It was rare that Jason and Damian were left waiting for a ride home, but for some unexplained (Bruce-related, most likely) reason, the day before the next group session, they were loitering around the halls of Gotham Central and waiting for 4 o’clock to come so that they could walk out to the car park to catch a ride home with Bruce. Damian scuffed his shoes on the concrete floors, tapping his fingers against open lockers and shoving them shut as he passed, head held high. He walked a few paces ahead of Jason, every inch the little prince he was. Jason had slung his backpack over one shoulder, his iPod out as he flicked through songs one by one, not paying all that much attention to where Damian was leading him until he heard the shouting.

Up ahead, at the end of the corridor near the stairwell that led down the hill to the English wing and the library, a group of football players and their girlfriends had circled around a girl in a purple coat, worn leather satchel slung across her body, awkwardly interrupted by her growing belly. Jason tugged his ear bud out, stepping up beside Damian, who had stopped and was looking at them with consternation.

“What’s going on, Little D?” Jason asked, squinting until he could make out who the girl was. Steph- Stephanie Brown, the girl from group. She was hunched in around herself a little bit, as if instinctively protecting her stomach, and her arms were wrapped around her rib cage. She didn’t look comfortable with the situation, and the group of kids didn’t seem particularly friendly. His gut twisted uncomfortably as he got a look at the expression on her face, and Jason moved instinctively. He shoved his iPod in his pocket, gesturing to Damian to stay put as he strode forward, coming into range just in time to hear the largest football player speak up.

“You know, you’re pretty cute,” the boy leered, leaning in uncomfortably close to Stephanie, who took a step back towards the top of the stairs. “Too bad you’ve got _that_ ruining it all. I could take care of it, y’know. A little shove down the stairs would solve all your problems, Brown.”

“Then maybe one of us would deign to fuck a desperate whore like you,” Another of them laughed, slinging an arm around his girlfriend’s shoulders as she giggled. Stephanie made a wounded little sound, gritting her teeth and standing up straighter as she took another step back.

One more step, and she’d be going down the stairs whether she liked it or not.

“Hey!” Jason yelled, pulling his hands from his pockets and shoving up his sleeves as he made it to the edge of the group. He pushed the others out of the way until he got to the tallest one, who stood straight, a leer still on his face and his arms crossed.

Jason, standing at least two inches taller than him at 6’ 3”, wasn’t really intimidated.

“What the fuck did I just hear you say to her?” Jason growled, stepping close enough to feel the kid’s breath on his chin. The kid laughed, rolling his eyes.

“What, ‘s she a fag hag too? You let all the faggots fight your battles, Brown?” Jason’s jaw clenched, but the kid obviously wasn’t done. “Did she let you fuck ‘er, Todd? You decide to see what girls are like too?”

“I just want you to know,” Jason started out, voice dangerously low as he tugged his motorcycle gloves from his back pocket and shoved them on. “That when I’m punching you, right now, it’s not for that idiotic little comment you just made about me. It’s for you being a fuckin’ cunt to a helpless girl.”

“I’m not helpless,” Stephanie snapped, speaking for the first time and stepping towards him with an indignant look on her face. Jason spared her a little smile before cocking his fist.

  
“Oh, I know _that_. But you wouldn’t do anything to hurt the baby, right?” He cocked his fist up a little higher and swung, his right hook more than fast enough to make contact with the kid’s jaw. The kid staggered, his hand up to his bleeding face as he stared up at Jason in disbelief, his friends shouting out some choice curses when Jason punched the kid again, right in the gut. He could see Damian off to the side, helping a grinning Steph down the stairs with a reluctant look on his face as he swung out to the side and caught a glancing blow on another football player’s face, following up with a hit to the shoulder that would, most likely, give him some tissue damage. He laughed, a little hysterical, as he kicked one of them in the groin.

“That’s a favor to your future wife, motherfucker. If that’s how you treat pregnant women, you shouldn’t be havin’ kids.”

One of the cheerleaders was screaming, and the rest of the kids were backing off by the time Jason had punched and kicked a good three or four of the guys. He stood, grinning a little bloodily, over the body of the groaning kid who’d started the whole thing as the others ran hastily back down the hallway towards the main buildings of the school.

“I hope you’ve learned something from this little lesson, sonny-boy,” Jason crouched down and tweaked the kid’s ear, relishing his pained groan. “You’re not gonna treat a lady like that ever again, are you?”

“Fuck you,” he slurred, and Jason grinned viciously. He twisted the ear in his grip harder, watching it turn red beneath his fingertips.

“I asked you a question,” Jason said, danger spiking his tone. “You’re not gonna treat a lady that way ever again, _are you_?”

“No!” he shrieked, tears welling in his eyes. Jason stood, dusting his hands off on his pants, satisfied as he picked up his slightly battered backpack and hopped down the stairs, leaving them lying on the group.

He hadn’t broken their cellphones, after all. They could call their asshole friends if they wanted help.

Jason found Damian and Stephanie sitting on a bench near the car park, Stephanie grinning widely at the obviously flustered boy, who was gesturing expansively with his hands as he tried to explain something.

“No, you do not _understand_ ,” Damian spit out, frustration evident. “The point of the book is not Gatsby’s _sexuality,_ and that should not be the _founding point_ of your _essay-_ ”

Jason tapped him upside the head as he reached them, laughing when Damian cut off his sentence abruptly and sputtered indignantly up at him.

“They’re all taken care of, Stephanie. Shouldn’t be botherin’ you anymore,” Jason said, crouching down in front of the two. He set his backpack on the concrete and reached out towards her, grabbing her wrist and feeling for a pulse. “You hurt at all? They didn’t, like, actually touch you, did they?” She shook her head, scrubbing her free hand through her hair.

“Nah, they just grabbed me a little bit and stopped me from passing them.” She smiled, a little shy, down at him. “Thanks for that, you know. I was worried they were gonna actually do something this time. And thanks for the first-aid, too, smooth one,” She nodded down at his hand, rolling her eyes a little bit. “I’m fine, pulse is find, my arm won’t even bruise where they grabbed me. The baby shouldn’t suffer one bit from undue stress.” Jason released her wrist sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head and sitting back on his heels.

“Well, uh. Yeah. No problem.” Damian was peering at her  with concern in his eyes, a rare feature. Jason hadn’t seen it many times before, only when Damian had found a shivering, abandoned kitten on the grounds during a flash flood thunder storm a few weeks ago.

And now, looking at this girl they barely knew, who sat there with a grin like sunshine and a positive attitude that was rarely found in the Wayne household, cheerfully bearing the weight of circumstance.

“You said ‘this time’,” Damian said, suddenly, his brow furrowed and his eyes stormy. Stephanie started, looking at him in surprise.

“I said what?” She repeated, a touch of nervousness in her tone.

“You said ‘this time’,” Damian snapped. “Which implies there have been other times prior to this one.” Her cheeks flushed a little and Jason could make out the beginnings of a tremble in her fingers.

“I don’t- it’s nothing. Normal shit. People don’t understand me having the kid, and they don’t understand why I let it happen in the first place.” She straightened, shoving her satchel over her shoulder and standing up slowly, her weight balanced carefully around her stomach. Jason scooted back a little to let her up, watching her face darken slightly. She was, he realized, going through a lot more shit than that sunshine smile would have them believe. Pregnant, pretty much a loner to begin with except for that Tim kid and some chick named Prudence that always hung around her when Jay saw her between periods. But before he could ask her anything more, she smiled again and turned back to them.

“Thanks again, anyways. But I should get going, I have a shift at the Arcade tonight and a shitload of Chem to do, so.”

“Be sure to change your essay topic,” Damian muttered acerbically, crossing his arms as she stepped away, towards the bus stop. She laughed, shooting them a grin over her shoulder.

“I finished it and turned it in two days ago, Wayne. On the topic of Gatsby’s similarity to Michael Corleone.”

Her laughter followed her all the way down the block, and Damian’s sputtering followed them all the way into the car.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know Jason is actually 6 feet even, but I took a little liberty with this figuring that living a more normal life and not dying would give him a little more height and growing time in general.


End file.
